In general, semiconductor component manufacturers consider criteria such as size, weight, power consumption, and functionality when designing and manufacturing their products. Increasing the functionality of the semiconductor components typically increases their size, weight, and power consumption. One approach for increasing functionality while limiting the degradation of other design criteria has been to integrate devices based on different technologies in a single package. This mixed die approach includes the placement of two or more bare semiconductor dice on a substrate such as a multi-level printed circuit board or a leadframe. The substrate and the semiconductor dice are then covered with a lid or encapsulant to form a Multi-chip Module (“MCM”). For example, one semiconductor die may be a drive transistor and the other semiconductor die may be an analog voltage regulator switch. A drawback with this approach is that the drive transistor may use a wire bond capable of carrying large currents, e.g., aluminum or an aluminum alloy, whereas the analog voltage regulator may use a wire bond more suitable for fast signal transmission and low attenuation, e.g., gold or a gold alloy. These two types of wire bonds are difficult to manufacture using mixed dice.
Another approach for manufacturing an MCM is to place a molded or encapsulated semiconductor die on a printed circuit board substrate and place a bare die on another portion of the printed circuit board substrate. A drawback with this technique is the complexity and cost of manufacturing signal traces on the printed circuit board substrate suitable for wire bonding to the bare semiconductor die and soldering the leadframe leads of the encapsulated semiconductor die to the printed circuit board.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have an MCM and a method for manufacturing the MCM comprising at least one bare semiconductor die. It would be of further advantage for the MCM to be cost efficient to manufacture.